Page 93 of The Psychopath Next Door

‘Shit. I mean . . . Sorry.’

‘You swearing is the least of my worries right now,’ I said, lifting the phone to my ear and calling Emma.

It went straight to voicemail. I tapped out a text:Where have you gone? I need to talk to you urgently.

The status quickly displayed as ‘delivered’ but didn’t change to ‘read’.

I texted Rose, who always saw her messages and responded to them quickly.Hi Rose, can you ask Mum to call me ASAP?

This time the status didn’t even change to delivered.

Dylan was on his phone too. ‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

‘Telling Keira what’s happening.’

I didn’t know what to do, except that I needed to head home. I grabbed my car key off the desk and said, ‘Come with me.’

On the way out, I told my assistant there was an emergency and that she’d have to run the shop for a little while.

I drove us home on autopilot, waiting for my phone to ping to tell me Emma or Rose had responded. Dylan attempted to contact them too, but with no joy. I tried to convince myself that I was overreacting, that even if Iris had been murdered – and this still seemed too outlandish to believe – that I didn’t need to worry about my family. It must have been a burglary gone wrong, just as the police had said. Sickening, but nothing to do with Rose.

I entered the estate to find the road blocked by police cars and rubberneckers who had come to look at the crime scene. A BBC news van idled by the kerb. As Dylan had said, police tape was strung up around Iris’s house and there were half a dozen cops standing on her front lawn.

I parked as close as I could to our house and hurried up the street. As we neared Iris’s, a CSI came out wearing all the gear, just like on TV. This was surreal.Unreal. I had to say ‘Excuse me’ to numerous onlookers, a mix of neighbours and strangers, to get to my house. As I reached the drive, I saw Tommy and Nicola standing outside their house, watching the comings and goings next door.

I crossed the road to them, Dylan at my heels.

‘Tommy,’ I said.

He looked startled to see me, and as I got close I caught a whiff of him. He still smelled of alcohol. Inside his house, his dogs were going crazy, barking in tandem. I realised Eric and Albie, wholooked a lot better than when I’d last seen him, were in the back of their car.

‘Do you know what’s going on?’ I asked, a little breathless. ‘Did you see or hear anything?’

‘She’s dead,’ said Nicola. ‘That cop over there said her head was bashed in, and the place looks like it’s been ransacked.’

‘Oh Jesus.’

‘We thought this was going to be a nice neighbourhood but we’ve had enough. We’re going to put our place on the market. You should too.’

They both went to move towards their car but I stopped Tommy and gestured for him to accompany me out of Dylan’s earshot. Speaking quietly, I said, ‘There’s nothing going on between me and Fiona.’

‘None of my business, mate.’

‘It was just a hug. But I want to ask you about the other stuff you said last night. What were you talking about? Have you seen Fiona do something?’

He flicked a glance at Nicola, who was squinting in our direction. ‘I don’t know what you’re on about.’

‘You said not to try to take a photo of Fiona, and that she’s a psycho.’

His face contorted. ‘I was wasted last night. I don’t even remember seeing you. But it’s not safe round here anymore.’

‘Because of Fiona?’

He shook his head, wincing in pain. ‘Albie’s going to be all right, but we’re not staying here and risking something else happening to him or Eric. Not while that lunatic is around.’

With that, he pushed past me and they both got into their car, Tommy sounding his horn until the police let him past.

Should I go and talk to the police? Tell them what Dylan had seen last night?

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